Vendors...how 'clean' is your prep area?

[laksakite]

Thanks to the OP for bringing up the topic. Thanks to the vendors for posting and their transparency. Gives me huge confidence in supporting these businesses.

 

[conanthewarrior]

I will be honest here, when I bought juice I would not of actually cared if it was 'knocked up in a shed' or anything similar, as long as the PG, VG, nic and Flavours were clean, and the measuring equipment, if it tasted good and kept me off the fags I couldn't care less.

I DIY now, and where I make it is in my kitchen. It is clean to home standards, but from working in nursing homes, it would fail inspection for little reasons that most people would not even think of.
I make sure my measuring equipment is clean though, and the bottles I put the liquid into (I do re use bottles though).

I realise now with the TPD it is a big issue for vendors though.

I wouldn't of been happy to find my juice was made in a bath that had pubes and baby shit in though, but when I smoked I did what many other people did, and bought 'dodgy' fags when available. Apparently these can have anything in them, and I still lived to tell the tale.

 

[Colonelboom]

The drying rack and bank of work benches, you can see the bain marie we use for particularly cold mixes to warm through slightly and tucked to the right of that is the digital scale and retort stands that are useful when decanting VG to ensure it all comes out and remains accurate.

We use colour coded cleaning products too, the blue mop you see is for under the drying rack or floor, orange microfibre mops for walls and then we have cloths specifically for the worktops.

To the right of that we have the flavours I am currently working with as yesterday was about messing with more flavours for the BLND one shots range, the cleanroom PC to the right and then a bank of 10 litre containers which is where we pre-mix our concentrate batches up where they are allowed to infuse for a few days before use.

The bottles stacked underneath are just the empties that have not been taken out of the room yet.

More of the pre-mixed concentrates, as you can see many are now empty as we mixed up a large amount prior to the TPD cutoff date in November and are getting ready for the new batch. It will only be a couple of weeks and that lot will be all full again, a few days later all empty ready for re-mixing.

The ones with flavours remaining are pretty much all going into or already being bottles into BLND. To the right of this out of shot we have a large hazard cabinet where we store the nic all locked up until it's needed. To the right of that is a double door leading into what will be the bottle labelling machine room but it's a set of doors and partition wall at the minute so not worth showing.

Potwash area with one of the racks of finished flavours to the far left, you can see one of the air filters we use (the big beastie) and then under the potwash table we've got a spill kit, cleaning chemicals and the important pump bottle filled with diluted Selgiene that gets sprayed on walls and surfaces to kill off pretty much every nasty bug you can think of.

A wider shot of the bank of concentrates so you can see what we keep in stock, that's actually pretty low too as we are ordering less concentrates in due to us dropping 20 flavours from the pre-mixed ranges of Colonel Boom's and Fallstreak. Ordinarily we keep 2-4 x gallons of the flavours on the first rack from the left, 5 litres of each of the 1 litre bottles on the second rack, 2.5-5 litres each on the third and fourth racks and then the small bottles tucked on to the end are flavours we buy in for testing and are then either used to develop new flavours or see if any improvements can be made to existing ones.

We order from 5-6 different flavouring suppliers based on suitability for each individual product we make so a blueberry from TPA for example may be used for one flavour, one from Inawera, a mix of OOO and other suppliers for another flavour.

We use the central table for flavour preparation usually so it's where flavours for that particular mix are lined up in order as well as things like flasks or containers we are going to use while developing new flavours (the red top bottles in the top of the table are 250ml/500ml stoppered flasks we usually mix our release candidates into to ensure the recipe scales for production with no quality issues or changes to the flavour. Please excuse the clutter at the front, it's a hand towel dispenser due to be put up.

Also, on the ceiling you can see the slightly darker long panels, these are actually white but my camera has handily picked up the slight difference in tone. These are the spaces for the dual ceiling fan filter units that will draw fresh air in from outside and create a more positive pressure in the room to make it essentially a laminar flow room.

Behind me in this shot is the partition to the second room which is obviously the rest of the space. To the left of the shot is the entrance area that has a gowning area, cabinet with coveralls, lab coats, gloves, snoods etc so coming in through the double glazed doors you can get changed before heading inside fully.

There's alcohol rub dotted around the room to keep hands fully clean and gloves available in the gowning area plus as you enter the room.

Hopefully that's a bit more descriptive, it's not going to change your world but should show the scale in which we try to operate and the investment we have made to stay on the market in pretty shitty times. No bathtubs, no pubes.

 

[conanthewarrior]

@PlumeBlu , that is cool to see your area you work in, are you a small or fairly large company? I only ask as I don't know much about juice vendors, and that looks like a lot of stuff! (To me anyway- it could well be a small operation and where I only DIY for me anything more looks huge lol).

The bathtub and pube comment was more of a joke, I know that isn't really going on, although I did hear rumour of somewhere previously using bathtubs. They probably didn't have pubes in though lol.

 

[Colonelboom]

@PlumeBlu , that is cool to see your area you work in, are you a small or fairly large company? I only ask as I don't know much about juice vendors, and that looks like a lot of stuff! (To me anyway- it could well be a small operation and where I only DIY for me anything more looks huge lol).

The bathtub and pube comment was more of a joke, I know that isn't really going on, although I did hear rumour of somewhere previously using bathtubs. They probably didn't have pubes in though lol.

We are only small really, comparatively speaking.

Next step for us is automated bottling and labelling but that's going to be upward of £80k

The bathtub and pube thing has been around for years too, it's how most homebrew mixers were perceived and I know of at least one homebrew seller was reported to have a pube (or suspicious hair at least )

 

[conanthewarrior]

We are only small really, comparatively speaking.

Next step for us is automated bottling and labelling but that's going to be upward of £80k

The bathtub and pube thing has been around for years too, it's how most homebrew mixers were perceived and I know of at least one homebrew seller was reported to have a pube (or suspicious hair at least )

Ok, as I am not too familiar with vendors and companies I wasn't sure if it was a large scale business compared to others for example.

Bloody hell, 80 grand? This is not part of the regulations is it? As I know there have been huge costs for vendors due to the TPD. When I was a carer that was about 6-7 years works, that was an awful job with awful pay, something I will not be doing again in a hurry.

Yeah I was familiar with the bathtub thing, I honestly never have used my bath to make juice though, I promise lol. I do remember the suspicious hair though, that wasn't nice and I wouldn't of been happy to find that in a juice I had bought.

 

[Colonelboom]

Ok, as I am not too familiar with vendors and companies I wasn't sure if it was a large scale business compared to others for example.

Bloody hell, 80 grand? This is not part of the regulations is it? As I know there have been huge costs for vendors due to the TPD. When I was a carer that was about 6-7 years works, that was an awful job with awful pay, something I will not be doing again in a hurry.

Yeah I was familiar with the bathtub thing, I honestly never have used my bath to make juice though, I promise lol. I do remember the suspicious hair though, that wasn't nice and I wouldn't of been happy to find that in a juice I had bought.

The machines aren't part of the regs, the trouble is that to warrant the costs of compliance and the building required to produce it, you have to have the sales and with that comes production costs to keep up.

From a diy perspective it's night and day but it's part of the reason why commercial juice production costs money and why the bottle prices are what they are.

Just for the bottling machine at £70k yiu have to sell a lot of 10ml bottles.

 

[conanthewarrior]

The machines aren't part of the regs, the trouble is that to warrant the costs of compliance and the building required to produce it, you have to have the sales and with that comes production costs to keep up.

From a diy perspective it's night and day but it's part of the reason why commercial juice production costs money and why the bottle prices are what they are.

Just for the bottling machine at £70k yiu have to sell a lot of 10ml bottles.

Yeah that is understandable to keep up sales you need good production, and with that comes a cost- even to comply with the regulations I understand is a LOT of money.

I hope I haven't come across as against vendors or anything like that, I think if anybody wants to pay for juice from a vendor, wether small or large, it is good as it helps the vendor carry on. After all, it is their, and your job to support yourself and family.

I did at first buy juice, and every now and then do buy a bottle to try out a new flavour I haven't tried before. Just where I buy so many mods and things that go with it, I really can't afford it and have to DIY. If I didn't have such a bad case of shinyitis (48 mods now at last count, at least double tanks and RDA's, maybe more) I would likely buy juice from someone like yourself.

I would imagine with the overheads, such as bottles, keeping the clean room a clean room, the cost of the regulations, labelling and everything else you have to do, a hell of a lot of 10ML bottles need to be sold before you make that 70K back.
I do hope though you do well with your business, and it can grow and grow

 

[gazlynn]

Well Vendors...

It's pretty much same sort of standard as my set up.

Here we have the mixing area ( please note that it's right by the patio doors for good ventilation )

Then moving onto the concentrate storage unit ( please note the crumbs of the previous inhabitant Christmas Cake at the bottom of the tin to enhance flavours )

Then onto the bottling and storage unit ( cupboard under the stairs )

Put that in your pipe and vape it @MrTeaTime

When do I get my ISO standard certificate?

cheers

Gaz

 

[Cotswold Vapour]

Well Vendors...

It's pretty much same sort of standard as my set up.

Here we have the mixing area ( please note that it's right by the patio doors for good ventilation )

View attachment 120600

Then moving onto the concentrate storage unit ( please note the crumbs of the previous inhabitant Christmas Cake at the bottom of the tin to enhance flavours )

View attachment 120601

Then onto the bottling and storage unit ( cupboard under the stairs )

View attachment 120602

Put that in your pipe and vape it @MrTeaTime

When do I get my ISO standard certificate?

cheers

Gaz

Still better than some facebook sellers I've seen...